README

Mock-API

An easy and configurable mock server.

Features

A fake REST API data server :smiley:
Acts as proxy server. Can forward request and fetch data from other data services :relieved:

Points

Helps in POST request to your server from anywhere, even from localhost
Fixes CORS issue.
We can make request to authenticated API.

Install

npm i --save-dev @rnmkeshav/mock-api

Setup

Step 1:

To run mock-api you will need a config file. This can be created with running below command in terminal

npx mock-api-setup

Step 2:

npx mock-api

or

Add npm script in your package.json file.

"scripts": {
  "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
  "mock-api": "mock-api"
}

Run mock-api from terminal.

npm run mock-api

Testing

Open browser and hit http://localhost:3002/photos/1

How mock-api works

This package usage express to create a proxy server. It takes your request, checks request method and url passes it through some middleware. It is these middleware which calls route.beforeRequest before making request and pick route.payload(more on this later) to make api call to your service. Middleware also puts response from your service(provided hostname in config/route) to routes.response_data and calls routes.beforeResponse() before sending response back to client. Middleware usage config file to create and manipulate request/response.

config file details

To run mock-api, config(mock-api.config.js) file is mandatory. This config file gets created by running npx mock-api-setup but can also be created manually. This is plain javascript file which exports an object.

You will be manipulating this file to achieve all your desired result and fake/forward api responses.

mock-api.config.js

let config = {
  port: 3002,
  forward: {
    hostname: "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/",  // hostname where request will be forwarded. This will be fallback for custom route.
    headers: {  // headers to be sent in all requests.
      cookie: "Hello=world;sdn=1", // cookie you would like to send as header when making request to your server(mentioned in hostname)
      host: "jsonplaceholder.typicode.com",
      accept: "application/json",
      referer: "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/",
      "accept-encoding": "gzip"
    }
  },
  routes: [{  // custom routes if you want to modify request payload or response data. This can also be used to override request/response default data(headers/status) mentioned above in config.forward
    enable_forward: true, // true means request would be forwarded to routes.request.hostname if mentioned otherwise fallback to config.forward.hostname. false means api would be returning route.response.response_data
    request: {  // request object details. 
      path: "/search/users",  // route path for which this object will come into force.
      method: "GET",
      headers: {  // This will override config.forward.headers
        Host: "api.github.com"
      },
      hostname:"https://api.github.com/", // This will override config.forward.hostname
      payload: {},  // Payload to send to server for this API call
      beforeRequest: function () {
        // This gets called before network request
        // This method can change request object.
      }
    },
    response: {
      headers: {  // Can be used to override response header.
        "custom_response_header": "custom_response_header_value"
      },
      status: "", // Can be used to override response status code
      response_data: {},  // This is where response data is placed when API call succeeds.
      beforeResponse: function () {
        // This method gets called after network request
        // This method can change response object
      }
    }
  }]
}

module.exports = config;

Property	Type	Details	Default
port	Number	Port on which mock-api server runs.	3002
forward	Object	An object which contain details about request where data will be forwarded. Details of this object can be found below.	{ }
routes	Array	An array which holds detail of each route where you want to do some manipulation in request or response object.	[ ]

Forward object details

An object which help build request object to send to different service.

In this document this object is also referred as config.forward object

Property	Type	Details	Default
hostname	String	hostname of the url where you want to forward all your request to.	"https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/"
headers	Object	An object which contains any headers data you want to send in your request. This can be used to send `cookie` to an authentication protected API	{ }

route object details

This makes custom route request. route property of config(mock-api.config.js) is an array of object which contains individual route details. An object which you can use to let mock-api know you want to perform some manipulation with request or response data.

In this document this object is also referred as config.route object

Property	Type	Details	Default
enable_forward	Boolean	This flag tells `mock-api` that should it forward the request for mentioned `path` or not.	False
request	Object	This object tells request details which will be used for `request.path` url. We can use this object to modify POST payload, query params, headers sent to service etc.	{ }
response	Object	This object tells response details which will be used for `request.path` url. We can use this object to modify response data, response headers, status codes etc.	{ }

Route's request object

By default all request adheres config.forward object to construct request's hostname, headers etc. This object overrides default behavior and tells mock-api to use this object to construct a custom request object for mentioned path.

In this document this object is also referred as config.route.request object

Property	Type	Details	Default
path	String	A url path for which you want to manipulate your request or response and create a custom request. Same as express.js path	""
method	String	Method for custom request's path	GET
headers	Object	Header object which will be sent when you make request to this custom request's `path`	`config.forward.headers`
hostname	String	Hostname for custom request. This when specified overrides `config.forward.hostname`	undefined
payload	Object	This object gets merged with your client's(browser) POST request's body to construct final payload and sent to mentioned `path` in custom request.	{ }
query	Object	Query param to send with request	{ }
beforeRequest	Function	A function which has access to current route object(`config.route.request`) using `this` and gets called before sending request to your `path` in custom request.	noop

Route's response object

This object is used to manipulate response for custom route of path mentioned config.route.request